The present invention relates generally to automotive safety testing and, more specifically, to vehicle impact testing methods.
Compliance with government promulgated safety standards by the automotive industry has for some time necessitated the impact testing of vehicles at certain designated speeds. The fluidity of these requirements as well as the interest of the industry in test data generated through impact at different speeds has necessitated the conducting of extremely expensive testing programs in which a multiplicity of vehicles is crash tested to yield the requisite speed varying data.
Prior to the present invention, no acceptable substitute for this undesirably expensive testing has been found, although attempts have been made, e.g., that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,562 for testing scale models.